Your Health

Good News
BUBBLE BREAKTHROUGH In the first clear win for gene therapy, French doctors report that they have successfully treated four boys with "bubble boy" disease, the immune-system disorder so devastating that its victims spend their lives confined in germ-free isolation. It was 2 1/2 years ago that doctors first repaired the genetic mutation that kept the children from producing healthy infection-fighting cells, and today the kids are still thriving. It was a dramatic coup for a therapy that has had more than its share of failures.

Bad News
FREAKY FROGS All is not well among the lily pads. For years, frogs with missing legs or extra eyes have been turning up in ponds across the U.S. Now scientists wonder if trace amounts of weed killer in rainwater may be partly to blame. A new report shows that male frogs exposed to altrazine--the best-selling agricultural herbicide--can develop multiple male sex organs or both male and female organs. Scientists think that even low concentrations of the weed killer--one-thirtieth the level allowed in drinking water--can cause the male hormone testosterone to morph into the female hormone estrogen. Does altrazine affect humans? No one really knows. But as scientists point out, people don't spend as much time in the water as frogs do.

Sources: Good News--New England Journal of Medicine; Bad News--Proceedings of the National Academy of Science